The FiveSecond Fuse
by Fortitudine
Summary: A gang member decides to get proddy with the Kid. Originally written as a challenge for the ASJ Fanfic Forum.


The Five-Second Fuse

_Five second fuses only last three seconds_. (Murphy's Laws of Combat)

Gangs is a lot like families. Sometimes the family's real happy an' ever' body gets along, an' sometimes there's that one mean ol' uncle or shirt-tail cousin what riles the whole rest o' the bunch up. We had one o' them when I was ridin' with the Devil's Hole bunch a few years back an' it wasn't no fun fer nobody.

Lefty Bloggs was a born riler. Seems like nobody could do nothin' so well by themselves as they could of done if'n they'd just took his advice. He was the champeen shooter, the champeen rider, the champeen tracker an' the champeen poker player of ever' place he'd ever been, leastaways accordin' to him. Most outlaws is real peacable when they ain't act'chally engaged in outlawin', but Lefty rubbed even Hannibal Heyes the wrong way.

Y'all heard tell o' Heyes. He took over the gang right after the law put Big Jim in the pen, an' bein' as Heyes ain't no big, mean-faced feller like Jim an' is pretty easy-goin' to boot, sometimes he run into trouble makin' the rest of the gang see things his way. So he brung in his cousin Jed Curry to back his play an' gen'rally keep the peace. Y'all heard tell o' Jed, too, only most people call him Kid on account of he's kinder young an' harmless-lookin'. Which is a snare an' a delusion, like the Good Book says, 'cos the Kid's about as harmless as a wounded cougar an' twict as fast.

Like I said, Heyes is real easy-goin', an' that drove Lefty plumb crazy. He just natch'ally had to try to rile Heyes up. But the harder Lefty tried to rile him, the more Heyes smiled that poker-playin' smile o' his, an' the more Heyes smiled, the harder Lefty tried to rile him. Pretty soon the rest of us was makin' bets on who was gonna snap first. Kyle—you 'member Kyle, he was our dynamite man—reckoned that in the case o' Lefty, Heyes had cut hisself too long of a fuse.

"Fellers like Lefty," says Kyle. "They don't see a man keepin' his temper as a good thing. They sees it as a sign o' weakness." We all agreed that, sooner or later an' pref'ably sooner, Heyes was gonna hafta do somethin' about Lefty. An' we'd reached the point where we was hopin' that _somethin'_ would be sudden an' real permanent.

One day it looked like we was goin' to get our prayers answered, 'cos Lefty decided he was tired o' hoorawin' Heyes an' went after the Kid. Now Heyes an' the Kid is blood cousins, but apart from bein' 'bout the same size an' age, they don't look nor act nothin' like each other. When the Kid first got to the Hole, one or two o' the gang tried push him, seein's how he didn't seem like he was old enough to shave, let alone use that hogleg he wore. The Kid pushed back—hard—an' that was the end of it, at least fer them what was left standin'. Lefty wasn't in the gang then, so he didn't know this, an' none of us felt particular inclined to tell him. Not that he'd of listened, mind you. Naw, he figgered he'd brace the Kid, just like he done Heyes, an' the Kid would either grin an' take it, or eat crow.

Now in the Devil's Hole, there's this hill behind the cabins what goes straight up fer about thirty yards an' then levels off in a little grassy meadow, an' the Kid had a habit o' climbin' up there in the mornin' an' linin' up a row of empty tin cans on the rocks to use fer practice. The rest of us usually stayed down below, drinkin' bad coffee, swappin' lies an' enjoyin' ourselves. It was right peaceful, settin' there in the sunshine listenin' to the Kid plink away at them cans, an' sure's God made little green apples, one mornin' ol' Lefty he come pushin' up to spoil things. He clumb that hill at a right smart pace an' started in tellin' the Kid how he was drawin' an' holdin' his Colt wrong.

Y'ever see a coupla dogs gettin' ready to fight, an' one is runnin' 'round in circles yappin', an' the other one is just standin' there real quiet with his head cocked, waitin' fer the yappy dog to git close enough? The quiet dog, that was the Kid. He let Lefty fire off one or two insultin' remarks an' then the next thing we knowed, Lefty was flyin' through the air like a cannonball. He come down that hill tail over teakettle, draggin' a mess of stones an' brush with him, rolled over six or seven times an' finally slid to a stop at our feet, where he starts yellin' an' cussin' at us like it was our fault. Which o' course in a way it was.

"We kinda fergot to tell ya, Lefty," says Kyle. "The Kid's got a five-second fuse."

I guess some people cain't learn from their mistakes. Lefty, he got back up on his hind paws an' charged right back up that hill like the third day of Gettysburg. We heard him holler "What the hell did you do that fer?" an' then the Kid grabbed him by the collar an' the seat o' his pants an' throwed him off the hill again. Lefty come bouncin' an' jouncin' down the hill an' fetched back up against where we was sitting. Only this time he didn't get up right away, just laid there lookin' up at us, all the wind knocked out o' him.

"Somethin' else we kinda fergot to tell ya," says Kyle, soundin' real apologetic. "Sometimes the Kid's five-second fuse? It's more like three seconds."


End file.
